Wittie Museum

The kids and I went to the Wittie this week! The dinosaur exhibit is still in full swing, so we decided to wait until school was back in session to go and check it out. We loved it! Emersyn and Ezra had a great time. Funny story, Emersyn was so excited and ran up to the first dinosaur in the exhibit just "roaring" away. I did not know that they had motion sensors and would start moving and "roar" back. Well, as she was being brave and loving it, she set off one of the sensors and the dinosaur started moving and "roaring". She ran to me crying as fast as she could and did not want to be put down the rest of the way. I think it made Ezra a little nervous too. Then, we got to the dinosaurs that you could push the buttons to move their different parts, he warmed up and instantly LOVED it. They were able to dig for dinosaur bones and all!
We have been to the Wittie before, but never ventured out to the HEB tree-house. We stayed in that area for more than an hour. They have such fun science projects up for the kids to test and try. Ezra and Emersyn loved every minute of it! We were probably at the museum for 2+ hours!! I was glad I brought snacks for everyone.
On our way out, the kids wanted to walk through the dinosaur exhibit again. This time, they were not scared! I can't wait for the end of September and January when they have the bug exhibit. I remember going to the Wittie when I was a little girl while they had the bug exhibit. It was like "Honey, I shrunk the kids". The bugs were huge and we were the small ones! Hopefully it's the same one!

This is one where you push the buttons and it moves the body parts

digging bones

Ezra pulling himself up on the pulley seat

they LOVED this one

Emersyn's favorite

in the tree house

my future drummer

Ezra played the drums, too

playing pipe music with a flip-flop

momma and baby duck

Baby #3!

I am sure most of you know, but I guess I never truly posted it on my blog, that we are expecting baby #3 in February. I am 15 weeks along and feeling great! Ha! Not so sure how to define the word "great". I can say that as far as "morning sickness" goes, I am nauseous in the morning if I don't eat something substantial, which means I eat all morning. I mainly eat all day. It is definitely getting better to where I don't have to eat every 3 hours, but can go a little longer. And, OF COURSE, I am tired! Not so sure if the tiredness comes from being pregnant or having two little ones around all the time. I am going to say BOTH. So, I really cannot complain. It has been a good 15 weeks. Everything with this little one is looking great. He/She is very active already and has a good, strong heartbeat.
 Just to set the record straight, we are NOT going to find out what we are having this time. We want it to be a surprise. We figure, we already are so blessed with one of each (and it wouldn't matter either way) that we are prepared for either a little Boy Eilers or a little Girl Eilers. We are just so blessed to be expecting again and are very overjoyed for the joy this little one is going to add to our bunch. Ezra thinks it is a boy though, and would prefer a brother. Emersyn, well, she doesn't know (or even get) that I am pregnan,t so, she doesn't care either way. However, I am sure she will soon change her mind when the little one suddenly appears. She is very much a Momma's girl. So is Ezra. Should be interesting! We are excited and very thankful.

PIGTAILS!

The other day I tried putting Emersyn's hair in pigtails and it worked! She looks cute with the pigtails, but a little too grown up for me. I put her in pigtails again today for church and almost took them out because she looks too old! I still think she is 10 months or littler! She is just growing by leaps and bounds. She is so smart, talking, able to climb on almost anything and so INDEPENDENT! I am just not used to that. Ezra STILL wants me for most things, which I LOVE! She is very MS. INDEPENDENT, and has to keep up with her brother. I guess that will be good for this third little bundle of joy that will be here in February, but she is still my little BABY girl. Makes me get teary just thinking about it. Anyway, here are some pics of the pigtails!

Jackson, WY (aka Jackson Hole)

Brent and I recently (like on Sunday) got back from almost a week long trip to Jackson, WY with NO KIDS! I have to say, this is the FIRST TIME we have done this since we have had Ezra. Ezra is THREE!!  Even though it took us  a while to finally do it, it was well worth the wait!
I have never been to Jackson, but have heard many times that it is such a great place to go. Well, now that we have been, I can officially say, it is one of my FAVORITE places we have been. There was so much to do. The little town is filled with great shops (not just the tourist t-shirt shops) and SO MANY great places to eat! We had two favorite places to eat, 1. Sweetwater (thank you Jennifer) and 2. The Silver Dollar. We had lunch at Sweetwater two times. We went to the Sliver Dollar for a date night and had the BEST FOOD in I don't know how long! It was so good I finished my whole plate even though I was so full. Brent even said it was his favorite day because the food was so good. I am sure he meant to say because it was a great date night with ME, however, I will let it slide because I agree!
We were up in Jackson for Brent and a work conference. We stayed at Snow King Resort, which is one of three snow resorts in Jackson. The resort was at the base of a mountain and about a 1/2 mile walking distance to the town square. When Brent was at the conference, I would walk to town, get a smoothie or iced coffee, go window shopping and then sit in the square park and read. The weather was so nice. It was in the high 60's/low 70's during the day and 30-40 at night. So nice!!
We rented a car for a day and drove up to Yellowstone National Park. We drove through the park (well, some of it. It's a really big park) saw some bison, elk and a wolf. We also saw some falls, basins and Old Faithful. It was really pretty. I think it would be fun to go back to Yellowstone and stay a couple days in the park to be able see everything. One thing we didn't see, and really wanted to, was a moose. They are really hard to see in the summer because it is too hot for them. Near Jackson, they have an Elk Refuge that consists of 2500 acres that is FULL of elk and moose in the winter. I bet that is a site to see!!
We also did some fun things around the resort. They run the chair lifts during the summer so you can take a scenic chair lift ride up the the top of the mountain and enjoy the views, so we did that. We also rode on the Alpine Slide. It is this huge slide (like a bobsled track) that you take a chair lift up to the top of the mountain and get on this seat with wheels and a brake and ride it down the slide which goes down the whole mountain. It was fun! My slide was so slow. You can control how fast or slow you want to go and I guess I wasn't pushing on the handle hard enough to go fast. Brent and I were supposed to "race" down, but he was already down the mountain, off his seat thing and recording me coming down before I made it down. SLOW POKE!!
Anyway, we had a really good time. The day we were leaving, They were setting up a stage at the bottom of the mountain for the Bob Dylan concert that evening. So, we got to go "back stage" while they were setting up and walk by Bob Dylan's tour bus. We never saw him though. It was still pretty neat. Oh ya, the airport was such a small airport (4 gates) and you got off the plane onto stairs that took you down on the tarmac right next to the plane. So neat. I hadn't done that since I was a little girl in California.
So, Jackson, I loved it and want to go back!

Town Square (ark made of REAL Elk Antlers that are shed and found by boy scouts)

Town

going up the scenic chair lift ride

view going up

from the top

Yellow Stone National Park (in the 50's this day)

Old Faithful Geyser (goes off every 60-90 min. that's why its called old faithful)

Our lone wolf spotting (recently reintroduced into the park)

Bison 

Elk

One of the Hot basin's running into the river

Grand Teton Mountains

Creek in the Elk Refuge (we were able to walk around in there)

Million Dollar Bar (seats were horse saddles)

Part of the Alpine Slide

Alpine Slide

Brent getting ready

At this point I thought I had a chance at beating him down the slide (HA!)

Bob Dylan (his bus is on the right)

Our airplane

Llano River

Llano River

Every year since 1999, The Lindig family has been heading to the Llano River and staying in the same cabin during the first weekend of August. I have been able to enjoy this fun weekend for a few years now, but this year was a little different. Most of the family, which usually consists of about 30 people, was narrowed down to about 10 of us this year. It didn't work out for most everyone to go, but we went anyway. It was such a good time. It was probably one of the most relaxing times I have had at the river. We had good converstation, good time to read, naps, canoe time and swimming/"tubing" in the river. We had enough food for all 30 of us, but there were only 10 of us!! We had great fish fry of fresh fish that Ezra and Brent caught on the throw lines. Yes, Ezra went out late the first night with Brent in the canoe (first time in a canoe) and threw out the throw lines. They both got up early the next morning, loaded up in the canoe again and went to check the lines. They came back with 3 big catfish that weighed a total of 12 lbs. The biggest fish was 5 1/2 lbs! Ezra was in heaven. He even went out on the river with us in the tubes to the rapids. Granted, these "rapids" were slow flowin' but you could still somewhat tube down them, and he thought that was fun. Emersyn on the other hand, did not think this a fun thing to do! Saturday night we stayed up late playing Chicken Foot, a dominoes game. On sunday morning, Brent and I got to go out in the canoe and check the lines one more time. We did not catch any catfish, but our lines were definitely NOT EMPTY. We caught TWO ALLIGATOR GAR! Now, if you are not familiar with this type of fish, they look like regular fish, but have a really long mouth full SHARP TEETH. Very crazy looking. One was not that big and when Brent put it behind him to take it back (so he could get the hook out of it) it tried biting his shirt. The other Gar, was HUGE! It was trying it's hardest to get off the line when we were coming up to it. It jumped out of the water like a Marline, right by ME!! I screamed! I thought it was going to jump in my lap. It did this several times. Brent ended up having to put it to sleep to get the hook out. I was not opposed. It was a fun morning. Brent and I haven't gone on the canoe by ourselves in a long time. We used to do this a lot before we had kids. So, it was a nice "date". Sunday afternoon we hung out, rode our mini bikes and went swimming. We loaded up that afternoon and headed home. We had two tired adults, two kids and a do passed out in the back of the car. It was a really good weekend!

getting ready to check the lines

all ready

our fisherman

good looking and tastin catfish

getting ready for the fish fry

looks so cute!, but did't care to be in the river

Chicken foot

uncle johnny on the mini bike

Jill taking a turn

some campers

emersyn's turn ( to pretend)

ezra loves going for rides